Nicaragua: the U.S.’s new objective

May 7, 2018 00:28

Disinformation and Unconventional Warfare – two strategies currently being applied in Venezuela and other countries – are part of the U.S. agenda to destabilise another Latin-American country with a progressive government.

Roberto García Hernández

With 30 dead and several dozen wounded, recent disturbances in Nicaragua and the corresponding campaign of disinformation are proof once more of how the U.S. is driving forward its subversive agenda in the region.

After reforms to the social security system were introduced by the government, several protests began to take place in the Central American country, reaching levels that had not been seen in a number of years. The Nicaraguan right and its supporters abroad immediately took advantage of these events to destabilise the country.

Criminal gangs attacked ambulances, shops, cars, official institutions, family residences and public spaces, which served to create panic and set off a chain of destabilising events in the country, one of the least violent in Central America.

Despite the fact that the authorities in Managua decided to roll back these measures, the protests continued to take place, but were coordinated in such a way that implied the presence of external “assistance”.

On April 24, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders condemned what she called the “repugnant political violence” used by the police, while mainstream U.S. media claimed that the protesters were demanding the resignation of President Daniel Ortega.

Sanders’s statement was made one day after the State Department ordered non-essential U.S. diplomats and their relatives in Managua to leave the country.

With this measure, Donald Trump’s administration aims to amplify the seriousness of the situation in Managua and other cities in Nicaragua, and thus pressure its allies to adopt similar methods with the purpose of isolating Ortega’s government.

According to The Miami Herald, evacuating the majority of employees from the U.S. embassy – a measure that wasn’t even taken during the war in the 80’s – is a sign that Washington considers the situation in the country to be “dangerously unstable”.

Almost simultaneously, the far right sectors of Congress, in particular representatives from Florida, resumed their plans against Ortega and reinitiated activities related to the NICA Act.

The act impedes any U.S. funding to the Nicaraguan government that is not aimed at implementing “democratic reforms” in line with the homogenous interests of the United States.

At the same time, lawmakers asked the State Department, the White House, Congress and its ally countries “to remain in absolute solidarity” with Nicaraguans and against local authorities.

On social media, “alternative” digital sites linked to the protests and local right wing media outlets – the organisers of the operation to subvert internal order in Nicaragua – are going to great lengths to fuel popular discontent. Their aim is to escalate the disturbances to the extent that law enforcement agencies have no choice but to counterattack with even greater intensity.

Operationsaccording to the book

Experts note that this operation against Ortega’s government appears to be the collective dirty work of White House advisors, State Department officials, intelligence agencies and agencies subordinate to the Pentagon, among other factors.

The most important manuals of the U.S. armed forces have come back into use, in particular Training Circular TC-1801, Special Forces Unconventional Warfare, which was published in 2010.

In cases such as Nicaragua, the U.S. employs a number of federal entities in its subversive activities, from spy agencies to specialists in manipulating media outlets, as stated in certain official documents.

In the TC-1801 manual, UW is defined as “activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force in a denied area”.

With UW, U.S. forces aim to exploit the psychological, economic, military and political weaknesses of the adversary country, develop and sustain resistance, and fulfil the strategic objectives.

Information Operations

The so-called Information Operations (IO) of the U.S. armed forces are part of a scheme to distort the truth developed in support of subversive activities such as those carried out against Nicaragua and other nations that are not accepted by Washington.

According to the JP-3-13 manual, which was adopted in November 2012 and which regulates this activity, the objective of IO is to implement the coordinated use of propaganda and other similar methods. Their goal is to “influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp the decision making of adversaries”, by means of spreading rumours, lies, and false accusations which immediately invade the headlines of mainstream media.

The FBI also plays a key role in achieving these objectives as part of what the Washington Post called a “little known alliance” between this entity and the Special Operations Forces. The latter consists of elite units of the Pentagon and an important component of UW. This type of interagency cooperation is aimed at manipulating information, one of the main weapons of subversion.

Venezuela and Syria are some of the countries that have recently fallen victim to this media charade that is largely propagated by global mass media, which in turn is almost completely controlled by the principal centres of hegemonic power (up to 90%).

As in other Western countries, specialised organisations in the United States use fake accounts on social media to create groups of supposed followers for determined “just causes”, which join the campaigns against countries that are targets for aggressions such as these.

The main purpose of these activities in Nicaragua, just as in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and other countries in the region, is to help achieve the strategic objectives of Washington’s foreign policy, move closer to a “change of regime” policy wherever possible and whenever necessary, and transform the negative perceptions of the population towards the United States and their foreign policy. (PL)